Goldfish need food that is a combination of carbohydrates and vitamins to help them grow and fight disease. They particularly need vitamin A to make their colors look bright. They do need protein but just about 12% so that they can build muscle. In natural habitat, Goldfish mainly feed on plants. They eat a fiber diet that includes algae, grasses and aquatic plants in natural environment. Thankfully you do not have to sweat much to provide them with equivalent nutritional needs because you can get it off shelf! These processed food available at pet stores include:

Flake food

This is one of commonly available goldfish foods, especially made for them and it consists of brine shrimp. It is easily eaten by Goldfish and helps in avoiding a particularly fatal sickness called Air Bladder Disease.

Pellet food

This is also flake food with brine shrimp but it’s packaged as a pellet. The only problem with pellets is that it sometimes swells in goldfish’s stomach and makes it lose its balance. This is what is Air Bladder disease.

Frozen food

This includes live food that is frozen. You have an array to choose from as in frozen brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex worms or mosquito larvae. This will come frozen in slabs from which you have to break off bit-by-bit and hand-feed your goldfish. You can also opt for Freeze-dried foods, which includes Krill, Pacific plankton, brine shrimp and bloodworms.

Homemade food

You can’t imagine kind of varieties of Goldfish there are! People have been breeding Goldfish for over 2000 years now. China is believed to have over 100 varieties and to think that it all began with Carassius auratus – gibel carp! Not all goldfish have been bred in China though. Other countries have specially bred their own goldfish around world. Comets and Veiltails are very American while Jikin, Tosakin and Shubunkin are Japanese. The United Kingdom bred its own Shubunkins and there are two types

– Bristol and London Shubunkin.